


Mismade

by Rigil_Kentauris



Category: Fire Emblem Heroes
Genre: AU where the Summoner isn't in time to stop Alfonse, Angst, Anti Fix-It Fic, Chapter 12-5, Copious use of the áccént key, Dark, Deathfic, Guilt, M/M, More Like A 'fuck it' Fic, Non-Canonical Character Death, Non-specific Summoner, Oneshot, POV Third Person, Tiny Little Fight Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-17
Updated: 2017-11-17
Packaged: 2019-02-03 16:40:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12752139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rigil_Kentauris/pseuds/Rigil_Kentauris
Summary: Bruno killed Zacharias. He's dead, and the Summoner isn't there to tell Alfonse any different.The time to avenge his friends has come.





	Mismade

**Author's Note:**

> I call Zacharias' lance _Vígríðr_ in all my headcanons. I couldn't find an official source on it's name, so...  
>  ~~you can absolutely call it that too if you want~~  
> 

He sees the fight fall apart in faraway flashes. Anna grappling with a lanky swordsman on the edge of a waterway, the Summoner scrambling up a broken wall to avoid a lance charge, Sharena dropping her weapon and grabbing at her throat as Sonya sucks all the air out of the space.

They need him.

They need him. He knows he should help, but there are other things on his mind. Things that move faster than him, independent of him. Things that throw him down, helping him dodge a blast of razor's edge ice and frozen snow. Things that infuse with his sword arm as he slashes open both Valaskjálf and Bruno’s arm. Things that spin him around to strike towards the center of the mage. Fólkvangr skitters off the curve of heavy armor and he doesn’t stop. He can’t. He puts all his weight behind another attack that forces Bruno to his knees. Fólkvangr is alight in Alfonse’s hands with magic and unsent fury. There is no room for mercy anymore, not after- not with-

_I killed him._

The mage takes advantage of the heartbeat’s worth of distraction to scramble for the nearest weapon lying on the ground, which is- which- Alfonse feels his world seize up all over again. Bruno has got a hand on Zacharias’ lance. Fólkvangr blazes as Alfonse whips the point of his sword up to rest at the base of Bruno’s neck.

He laughs, low and slow.

“Do it,” he says, smiling, one hand still tight around Vígríðr. “Kill me. Do it now! I told you before... You'll regret it if you don't.”

Alfonse can’t breathe. It’s taking everything he has not to cut the mage’s hand off, but he has to know. _He was alone... There was nothing he could do… He called out your names…_

_He was alone_

_He was alone_

_He was alone…_

Gods, it can’t be true.

He doesn’t know what he’ll do if Zacharias is dead.

If Bruno killed him.

If he died alone, in pain, calling for Alfonse, died at the hands of the man with his lance, smiling at it all.

He has to know.

“One last time, Bruno,” Alfonse asks, feeling a dizzy urge to end this man before he can confirm it, before he can say _yes._

But he has to know.

“...did you really kill Zacharias?” he asks.

“Hah! This again?” Bruno spits out, before Alfonse can take the chance to prepare himself. “Yes! I killed him! And I'll make sure you and your sister suffer the same fate.”

“Very well,” Alfonse says, feeling lightheaded. It’s good, though. It’s an allowance. It’s over. Zacharias is- is- And there’s no going back. No fixing it. No finding him. The sending stones, and the lance, and-

Oh, gods, he’d only been seconds from Zacharias, when he’d saved the Summoner. Had only been a few steps away. Had been so _close._ Why hadn’t Alfonse just- why hadn’t he gone- why hadn’t he run-

Why hadn’t he tried to find Zacharias, and never stopped, and never let go until he had?

He’d abandoned him. He’d abandoned him to this fate.

To die at the hands of an Emblian prince, who didn’t care. Who’d _delighted_ in it.

He feels sick.

He can’t forgive.

There is justice, and then there is _vengeance._ There is the certainty that this man should never have even one small measure of the justice he denied Zacharias.

Alfonse lifts his sword carefully, and bring it to the back of Bruno's neck.

“The time to avenge my friends...” he says, feeling distant from the words.

But Fólkvangr is very real. He puts another hand on it. Execution. It’s not his right, and yet, and yet…

The images of Zacharias’ broken body with eyes frozen in pain, of Zacharias screaming and choking on ice, of Bruno stitching jagged dead frostbite patterns across his skin as he struggled, of- of- of- tortured scenes of it every time Alfonse closes his eyes. Every time he breathes. Every time he feels his heart contract. Holding onto the sending stone and calling from deep within himself even though he knew, had _known_ , had known with a steel sharp fear that it was all pointless, that Zacharias was gone and he’d never come back-

_-you'll regret it if you don't-_

This was Alfonse's fault. He'd known it from the first moment Bruno said _I killed him._

He could have stopped Bruno.

So, so long ago.

Zacharias would still be here if he had.

_You'll regret it if you don't._

“The time to avenge my friends has come,” Alfonse says, swallowing down the guilt and the sick and the heavy weight of death in his throat.

_He was alone._

And Alfonse feels it too. Alone, again, when all he had to do was… was…

Bruno shudders under the sword.

“Do it!” he challenges, looking up towards Alfonse, gold mask glittering in Fólkvangr’s relentless light, his face twisted into a half-suppressed snarl. “Do it, now! Hah…urgh…”

He shivers again, curling up into himself.

“Yes…” Alfonse says, because he should. He _should._ He feels it, the anger at the man, the disgust, the sadness. All of it. All he has to do is what he _should_ have done, so long ago…

_There was nothing he could do… He called out your names…_

Bruno relaxes under Fólkvangr. He laughs, a short sudden sound, and then he dives for Vígríðr.

He brings the lance up, swings it around, readying a skilled strike that Alfonse knows he doesn’t have time to dodge. He does have time to end this, though. Bruno’s breastplate has slipped just a fraction, but it’s enough.

It’s enough.

Alfonse arcs his sword around as fast as he can and stabs it at Bruno’s side. It connects, Fólkvangr sinking in right below his ribs, with no resistance.

Bruno huffs out a short, shocked hiss of pain. Vígríðr falls away.

“Ah… haha… heh…” he breathes, and then falls beside Vígríðr, struggling with shorter and shorter breaths.

Alfonse can hear little else over his own pulse, loud and hard, but the Summoner is screaming.

_“NO!”_ they cry, the footsteps through the sounds of fighting coming a moment later.

He should go, help them, rejoin the fight, the Summoner _needs_ him, but Alfonse can’t take his eyes off the man dying at his feet. The blood is spreading slowly from the wound in his side. Too slow. Alfonse can’t shake the feeling that something should be different, that, maybe, somehow, Zacharias should be here, that killing Bruno should have fixed everything, that Alfonse should feel different somehow.

He knows what it is. The man isn’t dead yet. The man isn’t dead yet but once he is everything will be different. Everything will be right again. Zacharias will be dead, but, then again, maybe not, and at any rate, it will be over.

He puts a foot on Bruno’s breastplate and tugs Fólkvangr free.

Bruno gasps when it goes and then he really starts bleeding.

An artery, perhaps.

Alfonse doesn’t feel better.

If anything, he feels…

Bruno makes a noise that is half-moan, half-mumbled laugh. It’s eerie, and alien, and it isn’t right. It's not right. The man seems almost delighted with his demise, and it’s not fair.

It’s not fair that Zacharias had to die terrified, and Bruno got to… and… and…

And he’s too tired to care.

He’s just too tired to care.

He tries to bring the anger back, tries to hate Bruno, and he does, truly he does, but right now he’s too tired and too transfixed to do anything but watch Bruno bleed out and think _why hasn’t this brought Zacharias back to me?_

It’s only when Bruno sighs and his body goes limp against the ground that Alfonse can admit it to himself. He expected it to bring Zacharias back, but it won’t. Ending it only… only blazed through all the empty anger. Burned it out and left smoldering edges. Ending it only- only- only now he was just tired. Tired of it all. Tired of losing.

Tired of losing the people he'd loved.

Hands pushing him aside. Anna’s lips moving and the Summoner shoving past the both of them to kneel at Bruno’s side, everyone talking but he can’t hear them. They’re fuzzy. Clouded.

Anna shakes him, hard. The Summoner snatches the axe off Anna’s belt, uses it to slit through the straps under Bruno’s breastplate. Lifts it off, flings it aside. Cuts away the soaked, glistening black and gold cloth covering his skin, rips half their own sleeve off and jams it against the wound on his side.

Sharena runs up – dirty, bruised, injured _she was alone –_ and her eyes go wide and upset and she starts trying to pull the Summoner away, except…

Except they say something. Bark it out, the lines in their shoulders showing tense even through their cloak. Anna nods, unclipping her cape, handing it over to the Summoner.

Sharena’s face morphs into an expression of horror, and her hand goes to cover her mouth. Her feet carry her forward as if in a daze, standing beside Alfonse, kneeling down, holding one hesitant hand out towards the body.

She glances up at Alfonse, then at Bruno, and then she says, _Zacharias?_ and he can hear that, distant but he’d know Zacharias’ name anywhere.

He’s just not sure why she’s saying it.

He makes himself listen, makes himself pay attention, because if they are talking about Zacharias, then he should know.

“Sister?” he asks, a calm he’s proud that he’s managed to affect. “Sharena?”

He reaches out for her and she flinches away.

Anna’s voice is flat when she speaks up.

“We did the sending rite,” she says. “Zacharias should have answered.”

He doesn’t understand. Zacharias didn’t answer. He couldn’t have, because he was…

“Bruno killed him,” he explains. They know this, though. Yes? They know this.

The Summoner finishes another loop of ripped up cape around Bruno’s waist, and ties it with a tight, harsh motion. They move their fingers to check his pulse, shaking their head briefly and pressing harder in an attempt to find something, anything.

“Or we did speak to him,” Anna say, arms crossed, watching the Summoner, who pulls their fingers from Bruno’s neck and pauses before grabbing his wrist.

“I don’t understand,” he says.

The steel sharp fear is back.

Why, he doesn’t know.

He _doesn’t._

The Summoner shakes their head again, placing Bruno’s wrist gently back beside him.

"I'm sorry," they say.

Sharena’s lip wobbles.

“Oh, Zacharias,” she says, voice breaking.

He doesn’t know. He _doesn’t. HE DOESN’T._

Anna threads past he and Sharena, carefully brushing hair from Bruno’s face, and teases the mask free.

It’s Zacharias’ violent purple eyes under it, dull and glassy.

Oh gods no.

Alfonse stumbles back, not believing, _not believing._

His eyes. His lance. They way he’d wielded it with such skill, even in the space of a second. The sending stone. Helping the Akrans. Knowing them. No. Oh, _gods_ no. It doesn’t make any sense. He’s not an Emblian. He’s never _been_ an Emblian. Gods no, please, _please._

“No,” he says, barely able to get the words out. “No, that can't be true...”

There is anger in the Summoner’s eyes. Hard sadness in Anna’s. Sharena won’t turn to look at him.

In Zacharias’- in Bruno’s- in- in-

In his eyes, there is nothing.

Alfonse can’t look away. Can’t. It’s…magic, or something, it’s something evil that’s making Bruno look _so much_ like Zacharias now. The line of his jaw. The smooth fall of his hair. The arc of his eyebrows and his easy, perfect curve of his eyelashes-

The small smile on his soft lips, a smile that’s died with him.

_NO._

It’s not true.

But it is, isn’t it? Isn’t it? He’s dead. He’s always been dead. That’s the way he is in Alfonse’s head. Always dead, two seconds away from being saved-

The implications catch up with him. He feels like he’s dissolving, like he’s fading away in a storm.

“How could it be?” he asks, desperate for any other answer, desperate to ignore the conclusion. “If it is, then...that'd mean... that'd mean...”

_That’d mean...I killed him._

His world shifts, or maybe it’s just that he’s fallen, or maybe it’s both. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t care. He’s standing and then he’s beside the body, touching a hand lightly to Zacharias' face, to his cheekbone, knowing it’s him the moment their skin touches but denying it, because his heart is racing, and if, and if, and if he’s done this, if he’s done this thing, he, he, but he hasn’t. He can’t have. He’d never hurt Zacharias and Zacharias would never- would never- gods no, please, please please.

_You'll regret it if…alone…nothing he could do..._

Alfonse can’t breathe. He can’t see. There are spots over his vision. He can’t see. It isn’t true. He doesn’t believe it. He can _feel_ Fólkvangr in his hands, can still feel the rush of motion, the resistance, the way Bruno’s skin had given way so easily, the way he’d dropped. The feel. The weight. The rush of motion, the resistance. Spinning. Cutting. Running around and around in his head. The taste of blood in the air. The way he'd  _wanted_ it. It isn’t true. He doesn’t believe it. He doesn’t believe it. He doesn’t believe it. The Summoner tilts their head and looks beyond Alfonse and says _we have to go_ , but that’s okay, because he doesn’t believe. And he still doesn’t believe it when Anna and Sharena have to drag him away from the body, and it’s still not true when the Summoner puts Breidablik to his forehead and says _let him go,_ and he still doesn’t believe it when heroes seek him out even in the furthest corners of the castle to say _it wasn’t your fault._

Why should he believe him?

He killed Bruno, in battle, and that was his fault.

But Zacharias…

Zacharias is still out there.

Lost, alone, needing him.

Zacharias is still out there, and Alfonse will find him.

He has to.


End file.
